


He Had a Friend

by orphan_account



Series: The Water Cycle [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Gen, Headcanon, Pre-Trans Veronica (Voltron), Shopping, Stuffed Toys, Trans Veronica (Voltron)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-10
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:21:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23583763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Pre-canon, to my au The Water Cycle. Featuring baby Lance, a Blue Lion in the form of a stuffed animal, a confused mom, and a soon-to-be deaf shop owner.
Relationships: Lance & Blue Lion (Voltron), Lance & Lance's Mother (Voltron), Lance's Mother & Blue Lion (Voltron)
Series: The Water Cycle [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1607470
Comments: 5
Kudos: 58





	He Had a Friend

**Author's Note:**

> This features headcanons, and is most definitely the before of my The Water Cycle au.
> 
> Also, there's really only one of them, but anything bold is a word being spoken in English. Everything else is Spanish.

A piercing shriek ran through the air, and the source very quickly began moving towards a sweets stand.

Maura McClain sighed. Maybe bring Marco wasn’t the best idea.

She’d had her third, and hopefully last, child Lance exactly 6 months ago. And according to McClain tradition, she brought him and her other children to the local market. She had dressed in her nicest casual clothes and Lance was being very good as they walked around, him on her hip and cooing at the diverse stands. She and her husband had been having a nice time so far, but her eldest Marco Bryn had broken the trend of them being well-behaved.

Maura blinked and looked down to see her now-middle child, Sam Veronica-Grey, pulling at her skirt.

“Ma-ma,” The brunette two year old said in slightly broken Spanish through his pacifier, “Marco _lowd_.”

Maura smiled awkwardly down at him, reshifting Lance on her hip and squatting down away from the normal hustle of the market. “Yes sweetie, he is. Are your feet tired?”

Sam shook his head, but didn’t relinquish his hold on her skirt. Maura sighed. Lance giggled. Sam smiled and reached up to Lance’s outstretched arm.

“Ma-ma, I like Lance. We get rid of Marco?” Sam turned to Maura with sparkles in his eyes, his finger clutched by Lance’s pudgy one.

Maura giggled lightly, but wasn’t surprised by the question. Her middle child had been asking the same question nearly every day since Lance had been born. Truth be told, she couldn’t blame him. Lance was turning out to be a much easier baby to handle than Marco had been. 

“No, sweetie. We’re not getting rid of Marco.” Maura shook her head fondly.

Sam’s face bunched up (which was quite adorable with Lance gripping his finger). “Keep Marco? Keep Lance?”

“Yes, we’re keeping both.” Maura nodded at her confused child. (But how he was still confused, she would never know! The question had been answered the exact same way for nearly six months now)

Sam nodded, still looking down, but released the hold on her skirt. Maura stood up, and gestured towards the market area. “Do you want to go back now?”

Sam nodded again, and grabbed her hand. 

As the trio continued to walk around, Maura kept her eyes out for a stand Lance might like. Her baby had been quite subdued for the trip so far, choosing to coo at people and colors rather than specific things, so she was having a bit of trouble. 

Eventually, they ran back into Marco and Silvio.

“Hey honey,” Silvio kissed Maura’s cheek (much to Marco’s disgust) when he caught up to her, “Have you found any stands Lance might like?” Maura shook her head.

“Not yet. He seems to be mostly distracted with the colors.” They both looked towards their 6-month old son, who was chewing on Maura’s finger, unaware of the attention on him.

“I think I found one he might like.” Maura turned towards her husband, as quickly as she could without disturbing Lance.

“Where?"

Silvio smiled at her, and began walking in the direction he had come from, Marco’s hand in a tight grip. “This way.” Maura hurried to keep up, shifting Lance on her hip with Sam keeping close.

The stand was a block or so away from where they had been standing, and Maura thought it was perfect. 

It wasn’t very big or beautiful, but inside the tent were some of the most amazing stuffed animals she had ever seen. There were stuffed animals of all shapes, sizes, and color scattered around the tent, some fantasy and some real, but each created with the same outstanding skill.

“Wow.” Maura said breathily. The seamstress inside her was impressed, but the mother inside her was cheering. Finally, Lance would choose his first item from his first market visit, she would get a lot of cute photos, and then they could go home and she could get a nap.

“Good afternoon, How may I help you?” A young lady, no more than 16 or 17, asked as Maura surveyed the toys.

“Hi,” Maura politely replied, “Is it possible my son could look around?”

The lady nodded, and leaned towards Lance with a smile. “I’m guessing this cutie is him?”

Lance giggled at the attention, making Maura smile. “Yep!”

“Alrighty then, I’ll be over here if you need anything.” She gestured to a corner in the tent with a money box. Maura nodded, and the lady walked away.

“Okay Lance,” Maura turned her son towards her, and held him up Lion King style (she had watched the movie with Marco so many times, she was sure she could recite it word for word) “It’s time for _you_ to pick a toy!” Lance giggled at her, and started squirming.

When Maura set him on the carpeted ground, he seemed confused. He glanced up at her and started babbling, as if asking why he wasn’t being held anymore. When Maura didn’t answer, he started whining, and reaching up to her. This continued for a bit (although it seemed like much longer to Maura) until Lance seemed to notice something. His whining turned back to babbles, although more curious than confused this time, and he started crawling to a corner that had a number of feline-esque stuffed animals. Maura followed, excited to see which he chose. 

Though that turned to slight confusion when Lance completely bypassed all the felines on front display and started crawling _through_ them. As he went through them, Maura moved them out of the way so she could watch what was going on. She just got more confused as he continued. Over, under, even _through_ on one stuffed doughnut occasion, he just kept going. Maura would have thought that he just interested in the activity of it all if it hadn’t been for the odd look on his face, and the strangely consistent path. Half a pile of stuffed animals later, Lance finally stopped, and clutched a medium sized blue lion that he could barely wrap his arms around, babbling all the way.

“Oh, you like that one?” Maura picked up Lance and the stuffed lion and waved the lady over. “May we get this one?”

“Of course! That will be 443.96 peso,” The lady blinked as she looked the lion over. “Although, you might want a different one? This one has a bit of stained fabric.”

Maura looked at the stuffed animal over again and, sure enough, a rectangular section of the lion’s neck was red.

“Oh dear, you’re right! How did that happen?”

“We make all our fabric from home, so this happens sometimes when we dye them. We try to keep those animals away from the front though, I’m surprised your son found it.”

‘ _So am I_ ’ thought Maura. 

“Do you happen to have any other blue lions?” Maura asked.

“Yep, right over here.” The lady reached into the pile of stuffed animals (Maura would have to help her clean that up, later) and pulled out another blue lion, the same size as the one currently in Maura’s hand. “Here you go!”

“Thank you so much,” Maura said thankfully, and handed the lady the stained lion. 

But when Maura tried to give Lance the unstained lion, he started wailing. It was so sudden, Maura almost dropped him, and the lady tripped.

“What’s wrong Lance?” Maura asked soothingly, bouncing him on her hip. Lance stretched his hands towards the lion still in the lady’s hands.

“Bu! BU! **BLUE**!”

Maura gaped slightly. Those were his first words. Her baby had just said his first word! An english one, at that! When had he picked up **Blue** though?

Lance sniffed, and turned to her. “ **Blue** , Mama! **Blue**!”

Maura turned back to the lady, Lance’s wails piercing both their ears. 

“I, uh, guess he doesn’t want that one?” The lady said with a wince.

“I guess not,” Maura agreed as she handed back the unstained blue lion, “I swear he isn’t normally like this.”

The lady handed her the stained lion, which Maura quickly handed to Lance, and sighed in relief as Lance’s cries immediately subsided. “I believe you, and he’s certainly not the first child to cry in here. Although he is the first to cry for that reason,” she added with a small laugh, massaging her ear and setting down the unstained lion. 

Maura laughed with her. She had quite the strange child.

But he was also cute, and she wanted to take her pictures. And get Silvio to hear Lance’s first words.

“What was the price again?” Maura asked eagerly, getting out her wallet. 

“I’ll give it to you for 360, since it’s stained. And we accept cash or credit.”

“Alright,” Maura handed her a card, and once the transaction and goodbyes were complete, left to go find her husband and older children. 

-

Maura cooed as she watched her youngest cuddle with his Blue. Buying that stuffed lion had probably been the best thing she had ever decided to do, because Lance literally never parted with it (she, as her child insisted yesterday. How he had known the ‘difference’ between he/she/it though was beyond her). It- _she_ went everywhere. To bed, to the play room, outside, everywhere. And if he didn’t have her, Lance would cry until he did. Maura had learned her lesson about washing Blue when Lance was awake when he hadn’t stopped crying, practically wailing, for a solid 4 hours.

But that reliance would eventually go away, Maura would think, as she watched her youngest cuddle up with Blue and giggle. 

-

_It never went away_. 

When everyone in his 3rd grade class laughed at Lance for still having a stuffed animal? He merely kept Blue hidden from them. When Blue became so old she could no longer keep her shape? He took her fabric and made a smaller version. (Still keeping that bit of stained fabric around her neck, for whatever reason.) When Silvio had finally thought Lance was too old to have Blue and hid her? He went into Detective Mode and found it in 6 minutes, and contrary to character didn’t speak to any of them for a month. When it was time to go to the Galaxy Garrison, where he would be bunking with someone? He took Blue with him, and only took her out of his bag when he was certain no one was around.

When he mysteriously disappeared with no trace, leaving behind even his precious Ipod and family picture? Blue went with him.

When he came back? Blue came with him, along with a bigger, _very much not stuffed_ version. 

But Maura was okay with it all. Lance was her son, even if he had a sentient robotic lion that was 1/5 of the greatest weapon in the universe and had been in multiple battles, fighting for his and everyone else’s lives and freedom, and had even died before…

Okay, so maybe she wasn’t as okay with it as she showed.

But she would be thankful to Blue anyway. For even if she had caused him a lot of pain, had brought him into the war in the first place, she had also kept him safe. Had given him companionship. And she would always be grateful for that.

-

**Author's Note:**

> I headcanon that Blue, being on Earth, had located her pilot very quickly through his quintessence. When her sensors had picked up a nearly perfect candidate not very long after he had been born, Blue had begun watching over him. She stayed in a small corner of his mind, to the point where only baby Lance had noticed her existence, but made sure to never interfere with his life (No matter how much she wanted to at times). She waited for either Lance to come to her, or for him to grow up enough that she could go get him herself. (I already have a story idea planned out for that.) Blue was the reason the lion had the red dye neck, and the reason Lance found it.


End file.
